Bizarre goings on

This weekend's guests haven't had the best of Languedoc weather - cold, wind, rain and even a hint of snow today. At least they had the dvd player to fall back on, and interestingly chose a couple of quite bloodthirsty epics to settle down with over the last couple of days. Gentle questioning this evening revealed that the raw courage of the Spartans in '300' was more appreciated than the Old Norse animation of 'Beowulf'. Maybe it was wandering around the medieval Cite that made them hanker for the good old days of spears and swords and general slaughter using hand crafted metal weapons in close order combat.

We served them dinner this evening - a lovely piece of slow cooked roast lamb, it is Easter Day after all, asparagus to start and cheese and chocolate pudding, naturally, to follow. I think I am going to have to be careful - all this cooking and eating with guests, combined with the end of the renovation work and manual labour, could have a big impact on my waistline I need to get my bicycle out more often - maybe when it's less cold and windy though.

Last night I went out for a drink with Denis, who has a flat upstairs from me, and his daughter and niece, who are over for the weekend, and Gary. Due to some misinformation we all met in the wrong bar to listen to the live Irish band - the reason for going out - and by the time we got to the right bar, it was all over. Well, the band was over, but the bar was absolutely rocking with a lot of very very short women.!! I'm not sure that I understand why the average French woman is quite so vertically challenged, when the average height of people all over Europe is going up. Last night I felt like I was a giant, which didn't stop one middle aged woman grabbing me round the neck and suggesting something, fortunately incomprehensible, in my ear, much to the amusement of the Irish contingent. I don't know what she wanted but I have a pretty good idea, so made myself scarce with the smokers outside so as to remove myself from her temptation.

When I told Debrah about it she was mildly amused by the whole thing on the surface but clearly slightly piqued at the cheek of the French woman approaching somebody else's husband. "If you see her, can you point her out to me", was the slightly sinister offhand remark that gave Debrah's true feelings away - and I don't blame her - I would feel the same if the tables were turned.

The only other event of note was Denis and Gary doing a impromptu version of 'riverdance' in the street outside the bar. I don't know why it happened or what triggered it, but it was very funny and ever so surreal.